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I pay in two EDH groups and both of them feel like a nuclear arms race. "Oh look," we collectively groan, "the Simic deck made an unlockable creature that kills all of us," or "Izzet comboed off... again," or " didn't see that green token army coming." I looked at my decks and realized that they almost exclusively focus on the game plan with only one or two hate cards. I might rebuild decks but I want some feedback first. How do you balance hate/disruption vs game plan? For example, I run 50 cards consisting of lands, rocks, and essentials (
Swiftfoot Boots
,
Skullclamp
, etc.) and devote the rest of the 49 to my game plan while reserving only a few for cards like
Beast Within
or
Counterspell
. In the last 49 what ratio do you use and what's your group like?

My general rule with counterspells is either run enough that they're useful or don't run any. ~4 for a purely defensive build, ~8+ for more aggressive counterspelling.

As for removal, running like 2 pieces is never enough. 1-2 board wipes (unless your meta is super creature heavy) and at least 4-6 pieces of individual removal, split between creature and non creature. Though this number should go up if you're creature-lite but expecting to come up against beats.

February 9, 2019
9:07 p.m.

I think it varies a lot based on the deck and the meta. However I start with around 10 answers in a deck at least 3 of which are board wipes. Often this turns out to be heavy handed and I reduce it but I do have Should I Pretend This Or That? which has 17 cards that are dedicated answers, I could easily say the number is a little higher than that even.

One of my friends runs a
Zacama, Primal Calamity
deck which has built in removal so he has more like 5 answers in the deck and then just tons and tons of mana generation...

February 9, 2019
9:55 p.m.

I think it kind of depends on your deck. If your deck requires a lot of game plan cards to work, also maybe consider hate/removal cards as part of the essentials 50 as well as the nonessentials 50, just as you would for draw cards and Mana producers.

February 10, 2019
2:46 p.m.

February 13, 2019
1 a.m.

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